Shutdown Shows How Little Either Side Really Cares About the Little People

A sign hangs on an entrance gate indicating the Smithsonian National Zoo is closed because of a partial federal government shutdown in Washington, DC, January 11, 2019. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

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There's a struggle going on between Democrats and Republicans—or maybe Democrats and Trump, or Most Democrats and Some Republicans and Trump. Or another variation. But a border wall is not the real issue.

Politicians of all stripes to varying degrees (let's avoid the knee-jerk and typically inaccurate and self-righteous term "false equivalence," as almost no one uses it correctly) are interested in something else: power. Getting it. Keeping it. And, a pity that many get hurt, but you can't make a political omelet without breaking a few eggs that belong to the little people.

The current fight, while wrapped in morality on one side and security on the other, is to a significant degree an attempt to score political points. Yes, I know that when AP said it "takes two to tango," the outrage brigade tried to shame them. But they were right.

Immigration has been a political football for generations. The country lurches from the Hart-Celler Act of 1965, which ended many types of explicitly racist immigration quotas but also killed the guest worker programs for people from south of the U.S., to the Reagan amnesty of 1986 and all its complexities, to other attempts to change things.

The result has been a string of unintended consequences and positions often carved out to appeal to political factions, not to solve problems, an act that would require compromise. It also creates some odd contrasts. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who insists on holding fast to no wall, was happy enough to vote for the Secure Fence Act of 2006 for physical barriers at many parts of the border. (Nancy Pelosi did not vote for it, by the way.) Schumer also supported a 2013 immigration overhaul that included some additional fencing.

Senate President Mitch McConnell promised an open debate on a bipartisan DACA bill and then did completely the opposite. Why? Because he wanted to win.

That's the name of the game in D.C. right now. You can't always have your way. But both parties seem to want that. Because the positions become extreme, nothing is possibly on a range of important topics. In this case, the Democrats want no extra money for a physical wall, although some variation might make sense in some areas. Trump demands all the funding he wants and, when push comes to shove, asks for even more. (Some of it makes sense, like more funding for immigration judges, which would help address the enormous backlog of cases that exists.) Plus, the administration makes claims about the southern border that are fallacious and would be risible if not for the tremendous cost the lack of agency funding was having.

Federal workers may have normally secure jobs, but they don't tend to make a lot. Often, they, like so much of the country, live from one paycheck to the next. Today is the first paycheck they're officially missing. And even if Congress does eventually provide back pay, whenever the shutdown ends, it will be too late for many who are already looking for second or replacement jobs or selling possessions or trying to convince landlords to wait for rent.

Even now, the reactions in Congress are peculiar. The Trump administration wants to reinstate services that people are clamoring for, like IRS refund processing, even though doing so requires forcing people to work without pay. And Democrats have been fairly quite in their response because, as the Washington Post noted, "Doing so would come at considerable political risk, putting the party in the untenable position of suing the administration to block tax refunds, food stamps and other popular services."

For all the talk of the high-minded talk, requiring people to show up for work without pay, which means cutting any opportunities they might have to make some money on the side.

Then there are the people who can't get a mortgage finalized and are losing a chance to move into a home, or who lose money because they operate a tourism-related business near a national park, or on and on.

No matter how disruptive government actions are to the country at large, Republicans and Democrats are wary of rocking the boat because the predictability of the political battle is what keeps them individually in power and prestige.

And, according to one estimate of the cost to the greater economy is $430 million every day, or $13 billion a money a month.

When stakes are that high, you might think everyone would dismount from their high horses and hammer out a solution that won't satisfy anyone completely but could, through compromise, get the job done. Blaming one side or the other exclusively isn't accurate. You don't dig in your heels completely, expect the other side to capitulate, and then sadly shake your head in disapproval, especially when some basic issues like immigration should have been more effectively addressed years ago. What, they're going to wait for the other side to appear to give in first?

Maybe they all seem to have more important things to do.

Erik Sherman writes about business, technology, economics, and public policy. You can follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn.